When I look at the whole journey I can see that things are getting better.
Our family is settling into the new normal of five kids, including three toddlers. I'm settling into managing the household demands of groceries, meals, laundry, baths, bedtimes, etc. Theo and I have figured out that I need way more support than ever before and how to provide that. The big boys have carved out their zones and we are intentional about preserving their interests and identities.
The girls are truly becoming less anxious and more at home here every day. So many behaviors have come and gone. The negative behaviors that remain are less severe. Progress has been slow but it has also been steady.
Kate has completely attached. At our family visit two days ago she cried when I walked away to buckle James into his carseat first and didn't want to stay with Grandma, as I'd intended. She calls me mama and acts towards me exactly as my bio children did when they were her age. I feel like she is truly home and will have few, if any, memories of a time before she came here (not discounting the emotional trauma that will always be there, under the surface).
James loves the girls as siblings and would be lost without them. He imagines play with Jane and bickers with Kate exactly as you'd expect brothers and sisters to do. I think their naturally better vocabulary skills have been a good influence on him as he's talking more all the time (all my boys are later developers in this area).
Jane is...better. She really is. And perhaps I notice the micro-irritations precisely because the major irritations are fewer.
I should think of it that way. Because these micros are really wearing me down
Here's an example. Kate and James awoke first this morning. They were both downstairs with me. I'm sitting in a giant recliner having my coffee while James sits on my lap and Kate plays on the floor. The room is quiet; we're all half-asleep. Jane starts to come down but first hides on the steps. She doesn't know I can see her. She likes to spy on us. After a few moments she comes down and I smile warmly at her and hold out my free arm to give her a hug.
She isn't looking at me. She doesn't see my smile or my offered arm. She spied long enough to figure out that James was on my lap getting attention. Her eyes are zeroed in on him. The look on her face is such intense, animalistic jealousy that I imagine it's what a starving person would look like if you locked them in a cage and fed everyone else but them. She runs right at James and attempts to push him out of the way.
I am just sad. I have to stop her and correct her and comfort James and this brings Kate's head swinging up and her big eyes taking it all in. I wish so hard that she could still be playing peacefully and James could still be settled warmly against me. I am sad at how often their peace is broken.
I am disappointed that she is so hurt, so traumatized, she is still hyper-focusing on my occupied right leg and arm to such a degree she didn't even see my open and welcoming left leg and arm.
I am so very tired that even when I make a conscious effort to smile and welcome her still...still...I have to unravel her jealousies and insecurities.
The whole event is so brief. A second of her running towards us, a few more seconds of verbal correction and a mini time out to reset. In about a minute she has successfully retreated to the base of the stairs and then approached us nicely and climbed up onto my left knee and is settled against me. Me holding both James and Jane, my three-year-old twins as I call them, as it should be. And as it could have been from the beginning, peacefully and contentedly, if only she'd come down the stairs happily and looking for my face.
The good news is that this whole event has shortened from hours to seconds. The bad news is that I don't know if she'll ever, really, be capable of moving beyond these micro-moments.
She panics. She disrupts. I intervene. Everyone is knocked off-kilter. Even if the events are 1-2 minutes long, we repeat this pattern All. Day. Long. Two minutes of interruption, one to two times per hour, is a constant state of interruption.
Our family is settling into the new normal of five kids, including three toddlers. I'm settling into managing the household demands of groceries, meals, laundry, baths, bedtimes, etc. Theo and I have figured out that I need way more support than ever before and how to provide that. The big boys have carved out their zones and we are intentional about preserving their interests and identities.
The girls are truly becoming less anxious and more at home here every day. So many behaviors have come and gone. The negative behaviors that remain are less severe. Progress has been slow but it has also been steady.
Kate has completely attached. At our family visit two days ago she cried when I walked away to buckle James into his carseat first and didn't want to stay with Grandma, as I'd intended. She calls me mama and acts towards me exactly as my bio children did when they were her age. I feel like she is truly home and will have few, if any, memories of a time before she came here (not discounting the emotional trauma that will always be there, under the surface).
James loves the girls as siblings and would be lost without them. He imagines play with Jane and bickers with Kate exactly as you'd expect brothers and sisters to do. I think their naturally better vocabulary skills have been a good influence on him as he's talking more all the time (all my boys are later developers in this area).
Jane is...better. She really is. And perhaps I notice the micro-irritations precisely because the major irritations are fewer.
I should think of it that way. Because these micros are really wearing me down
Here's an example. Kate and James awoke first this morning. They were both downstairs with me. I'm sitting in a giant recliner having my coffee while James sits on my lap and Kate plays on the floor. The room is quiet; we're all half-asleep. Jane starts to come down but first hides on the steps. She doesn't know I can see her. She likes to spy on us. After a few moments she comes down and I smile warmly at her and hold out my free arm to give her a hug.
She isn't looking at me. She doesn't see my smile or my offered arm. She spied long enough to figure out that James was on my lap getting attention. Her eyes are zeroed in on him. The look on her face is such intense, animalistic jealousy that I imagine it's what a starving person would look like if you locked them in a cage and fed everyone else but them. She runs right at James and attempts to push him out of the way.
I am just sad. I have to stop her and correct her and comfort James and this brings Kate's head swinging up and her big eyes taking it all in. I wish so hard that she could still be playing peacefully and James could still be settled warmly against me. I am sad at how often their peace is broken.
I am disappointed that she is so hurt, so traumatized, she is still hyper-focusing on my occupied right leg and arm to such a degree she didn't even see my open and welcoming left leg and arm.
I am so very tired that even when I make a conscious effort to smile and welcome her still...still...I have to unravel her jealousies and insecurities.
The whole event is so brief. A second of her running towards us, a few more seconds of verbal correction and a mini time out to reset. In about a minute she has successfully retreated to the base of the stairs and then approached us nicely and climbed up onto my left knee and is settled against me. Me holding both James and Jane, my three-year-old twins as I call them, as it should be. And as it could have been from the beginning, peacefully and contentedly, if only she'd come down the stairs happily and looking for my face.
The good news is that this whole event has shortened from hours to seconds. The bad news is that I don't know if she'll ever, really, be capable of moving beyond these micro-moments.
She panics. She disrupts. I intervene. Everyone is knocked off-kilter. Even if the events are 1-2 minutes long, we repeat this pattern All. Day. Long. Two minutes of interruption, one to two times per hour, is a constant state of interruption.
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